Monday, February 19, 2007

Did Kelly Osbourne "out" her brother's HIV?

He cleaned up his act, dropped 70 pounds, got into kickboxing and even made an endearing comeback as a Muncie, Indiana cop on the axed-too-soon CBS series, Armed & Famous, but it's poor Jack Osbourne who's being targeted now that his big sister Kelly blurted out that a "member of her family" is HIV positive.

Kelly has made headlines around the world after "breaking down" onstage at an HIV charity event in London last night, then running off and leaving everyone to use their imaginations about what and who she was talking about. But within hours, fingers began pointing at 21-year-old Jack, whose quick ride to teenage fame on the MTV reality show The Osbournes led to a very public battle with hard drugs and opiates.

Tonight, someone's even defaced Jack's Wikipedia entry, stating that he's "now once again made headlines in 2007, when he was diagnosed with HIV."

Sources tell us that Jack is indeed the one Kelly was referring to-- but that's not the point, is it? Indiscreet Kelly has started a guessing game that won't end until the family ends it-- or some tabloid buys up the medical records. And though Kelly added "I am so, so proud of him," any member of Kelly's immediate family could have been exposed to the virus in recent years. Pick drugs, wild, promiscuous rock 'n' roll and/or TV star sex-- or surgery:

Mom Sharon, the sharp businesswoman who ruined her children's lives when she arranged for the family to star in The Osbournes was operated on for colon cancer in 2002. Eldest daughter Aimee-- the one smart enough to mostly stay away from the reality cameras-- had breast cancer surgery in 2003, the same year that legendary drug abuser Ozzy was involved in a near-fatal quad bike accident. Kelly also had a stint in rehab for painkillers.

"It wasn't how I expected my life to turn out. Especially, mainly pertaining to the show," he told an MTV interviewer in another TV special after he completed rehab. "It never crossed my mind that one day I'm gonna be big and famous and have my own TV show, you know? All of a sudden we are meeting with MTV, (and they're) saying, 'You are gonna be doing a show, and you are gonna be followed around.' When we were filming I never thought once about it coming out. And then when it came out, it was just such a... it was like a shock to the body.

"It was super insane and just like, 'What is this?' There's people outside our house; you get followed by photographers; you can't go out and have a cup of coffee with a friend without someone coming up to you with a picture and (saying,) "Sign this"... It's stressful. Just the whole fact of being someone in the public eye."

And if you want to expand the field of "hims," we should mention that Kelly showed up at that fundraiser with her 40-year-old male cousin, Terry. He's a hairdresser who stars in a UK TV show, The Salon.

HELP HAITI

TEXT "HAITI" TO 90999 to give $10 to the Red Cross (click photo for more aid groups)

GET UPDATES

About Me

DANNY GANS

Click the photo for our complete coverage of the death and legacy of the Las Vegas superstar

Watch:

Read:

"Sad, funny, undeniably authentic, Tabloid Baby tells the tale of what befell too much of mainstream television news over the past couple of decades as the bad drove out the good."
--Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes

"Burt was there for the birthing of tabloid, he became the heart of the genre, and now he's written the bible."
--Maury Povich

"Dear Burt: While you always had quite a flair for the dramatic, you never had much regard for the truth... Apparently you can't be bothered to read anything carefully. Maybe that is why you, like O'Reilly, make half your crap up.
Glad to hear you finally got sober." -- Barry Nolan, 04.12.08